I'm not a sportswoman but....

... I do like to WATCH sports :-)

I've been glued to the telly this past week watching the Beijing Olympics. I think Michael Phelps is part fish... maybe once he hits the water, he grows webs between his fingers and toes and if you examine under his ears carefully, you'll see gills. That man is sheer genius in the water!!

That aside, I happened to catch the 200m women's fly finals. It was an ok race at the start but at the turn for the last lap, China's Liu Zige starting catching up with the defending champion and beat her by about a body length, cutting the world record by 10 seconds. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!!

These wonderful feats bring to mind 1976 Nadia Comeneci's perfect 10 performance and Barcelona 1992 Fu Minxiang's winning dive from the 10m platform. I don't think I've ever seen anything to beat these 2 breathtaking and beautifully executed performances.

Oh yes, I remember from eons ago in some vague part of my memory Mark Spitz's wins in the pool. If I'm not wrong, he had a full head of hair, a big moustache and a triangle Speedo. But now, all the swimmers are either bald or double-capped with shark skin suits that compress their bodies to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible. So are the new world records a result of their own prowess or the suits?

So ok, Singapore won silver in the women's team table tennis but it's all very hollow to me as at the end of the day, all 3 players are imports and not trained and developed in Singapore. I'm sure I'm not the only one saying that it was essentially a China vs China match. But Zhang Yining is another kettle of fish altogether. She is by far the coolest player I have ever had the pleasure of watching. It's no wonder she's World No. 1 :-P

Badminton... now that's about the only sport with a net that I know how to truly appreciate, having played it myself since I was so high with the neighbour kids and joining the badminton team in school just for the heck of it. Strangely enough, they didn't show badminton on Channel 5, the "official Olympic channel". Funny how the official channel missed out so many events. Maybe they weren't officious enough.

Well, I managed to catch the men's final between world no. 1, China's Lin Dan and Malaysian Lee Chong Wei. That Lin Dan... W.O.W. I've never seen him play before but I'm glad I channel-surfed to the Malaysian station and caught that match.

Caught gymnastics last night and was a bit shaken by the hairlessness of the men gymnasts from the eastern bloc. Men really shouldn't shave anything other than their faces. Since we're on that subject, men shouldn't do floor exercises either, especially big men with bulky muscles. It's not a pretty sight.

I don't know what's on tonight but I think it's beach volleyball. I'll give that a miss and get on with reading my Eddings.